Treasures that scientists keep on ice

Mystery Dissection

OK, I had an inspiration for another short image-based blog post. People seemed to enjoy the wallaby mystery photo, so I’ll start a tradition here of mystery images from dissections of “my” specimens. That could even be an easy quasi-weekly thing to do.

What’s this animal? Binomial required. One guess per person please, unless you all get stumped. Bonus myology-nerd points to those who can name all the labelled muscles without checking literature (I’ve used these abbreviations a lot in my papers!).

John, you certainly don’t believe in making it too easy! Herpetoproctology is not one of my strong points but I don’t have a reputation to worry about so I’ll have a stab. Nile monitor, Varanus niloticus.

Two of the muscles are the caudofemoralis brevis and the caudofemoralis longus. (It’s amazing what I’ve picked up from reading a few palaeo blogs).

Maybe I made that too easy in the end with the hint; Coherentsheaf (in <90 minutes!) and Diane got it– damn those back spines! Was hoping someone would find familiar patterns in the belly scales, colouration, cloacal morphology etc., but that was admittedly an insanely hard mystery pic without the 2nd pic. Tuataras: what's not to love? Pineal gland "third eye", single genus from an ancient lineage of once-very-successful rhynchocephalians, fairly primitive leg musculature and gait– lovely little lepidosaurian legacies.

Thanks for your perseverance on this mystery dissection pic! Another to come tomorrow…